"Selective" is an easy term to define...but you can be "selective" in many ways.

Typically it means to harvest your target fish, and either avoid or release your non-target fish. Every fishing technique is "selective", but what we're talking about is the relative ability to release non-target fish safely, which isn't being "selective", it pertains to relative release mortality.

Some techniques have better relative release mortalities, i.e., purse seines have better release mortality rates compared to gillnets, all other things being equal.

For the "tangle nets" (small mesh gillnets), they have a better release mortality rate for Chinook, but a worse release mortality rate for steelhead, compared to a 9 inch mesh gillnet.

The question here isn't about defining "selective"...that's easy. The question here is will having a better relative release mortality achieve the stated goal...being "selective" is a tool, not an end to a means.

In this case, WDFW clearly states the goal of the commercial selective fishing techniques they are studying, and that goal is to put more hatchery fish in the commercial totes while using up the allotted ESA impacts on steelhead and spring Chinook.

With that as the goal, if they can make the new fishing techniques legal, effective at harvesting fish, and with a lower relative release mortality, then they will easily be able to achieve that goal.

Some seem to think that the goal is to have more wild fish spawning, but that is a numerical impossibility when the limiting factor on a fishery is the number of dead wild potential spawners.

Another very minor goal would be to have less hatchery fish on the spawning grounds interacting with wild fish spawning, but the relative composition of the wild/hatchery ratio on the spawning grounds will change so little that any achievement of that goal will be negligible, at best.

The intellectual leap from the stated goal (more hatchery fish in commercial totes) to more fish spawning, and no bad effects on sportfishing, introduces a level of Orwellian doublespeak to fisheries management that to this point is unheard of...and that's saying something, since doublespeak is almost de riguer in fisheries management.

It's not about whether being "selective" is good or bad...everything is selective. It's not about what the relative release mortality rates are...they're just numbers.

It's about whether or not this form of being "selective" is appropriate to achieve the stated goals, and anyone who has the goal of better sportfishing, the goal of more wild fish spawning, or the goal of more effective wild fish spawning, will be sadly disappointed if these techniques are used in the LCR fisheries...it's a wholly inappropriate tool to accomplish those goals.

Where would it be appropriate to accomplish any goal beyond more fish in the commercial totes? Anywhere that dead non-target fish is not the limiting factor on the length or breadth of the fishery. In those cases, it might actually result in more spawners on the spawning grounds while still increasing commercial catch. It will, however, still effect sportfishing negatively as more hatchery fish are removed from the available harvest pool...in the case where sportfishing targets the wild fish, it would be a definite benefit to the sportfishery, if the commercial fishery were releasing wild fish with the best release mortality rate possible.

When we are both targeting the same fish (hatchery Chinook), and a different fish (wild Chinook) is the limiting factor, then the benefits to wild fish will be negligible, the detriments to sportfishing will be tangible, and the benefits to the commercial fisherry will be significant.

That all assumes that it actually works as the States intend it to.

Fish on...

Todd